PALM farm worker sentenced to eight years' jail for raping teenager near Arrawarra

A PALM scheme farm worker has been sentenced to serve at least five years and four months in prison for raping a teenage girl on the NSW mid north coast in 2023.

Warning: This story contains details of sexual assault that some readers may find distressing.

In the Coffs Harbour District Court on Thursday, Judge Michael McHugh sentenced Agaalofa Agaalofa to an aggregate jail sentence of eight years for four charges of sexual intercourse without consent and a charge of assault.

When the verdict was translated for him by a Samoan interpreter, Agaalofa showed no visible change in his expression or movement, while appearing via an audio-visual link from custody in Nowra.

Judge McHugh said Agaalofa was likely to be deported when his sentence ended, but that he would be listed on the NSW child protection register for 15 years following his release.

Agaalofa nodded his understanding as each of his reporting obligations on this register were translated for him.

Two women, also of a Pacific Island background, who voluntarily support PALM workers on the Coffs Coast, were in court for the verdict, but there were no other members of the public or victim's family in the courtroom.

A Samoan national, Agaalofa, 27, was charged in January 2024 over the sexual assault of a 17-year-old girl on a beach near Arrawarra Headland, north of Coffs Harbour, on November 10, 2023.

He was arrested at nearby Dirty Creek in January 2024.

In a closed court session in September, after hearing the victim's evidence to the jury, but before her cross-examination, he changed his plea to guilty for all five charges.

Agaalofa was in the Coffs Harbour region working on farms as part of the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme when the assault occurred.

The judge noted he arrived in Australia in 2021 under the PALM scheme and he had strong family ties to his parents in Samoa and an aunt in Sydney.

In sentencing, Judge McHugh said, "I don't think I have ever seen a stronger case from the Crown on consent."

He cited time-stamped text messages the victim sent using phone voice recognition.

"The evidence of the complainant, in my view, is an exceptionally strong case."

The judge outlined evidence of how the teenager was ambushed, thrown into shrubs and endured several unwanted sexual acts, before she was spat upon.

After penetrative intercourse, she kicked the offender in the neck and chest area and ran away screaming, until she encountered a family member, who had been alerted by her text messages.

Judge McHugh said the last assault was "the most serious of assaults because of the risk of pregnancy and of disease".

He said in determining the sentence, the aggravating factors included her clear lack of consent, her age of 17 years, that she was unknown to the offender, the vulnerability of her 45 kilograms to his 163 kilograms and the threat and use of violence.

Judge McHugh applied two 5 per cent discounts to the sentence for the late plea of guilty and Agaalofa's willingness to facilitate the pursuit of justice by not contesting his identification at trial and pleading guilty before the victim's evidence "was tested in the crucible of cross-examination".

From jail, Agaalofa submitted a letter of apology to the victim in October, which was taken into account by the judge in sentencing.

Agaalofa was first connected to the case after the victim's phone was located through an app at accommodation occupied by foreign farm workers.

Police claimed Agaalofa told them he found the phone on the beach near Arrawarra three weeks earlier.

The jury heard that DNA taken from Agaalofa matched some swabs taken from the victim.

The phone and DNA evidence led to the release of a 34-year-old Samoan man arrested three days after the incident, who was dismissed of rape charges.

Agaalofa's sentence was backdated to January 30, 2024, when he entered custody and he will become eligible for parole on May 29, 2029.